How to Recover Deleted Files

Trying to undelete files removed from the Recycle Bin, but don’t know where to start? Looking for a way to recover information from a flash drive or memory card? Deleted a bunch of files and want to get them back? Undelete files and recover information one step after another with Hetman Uneraser by Hetman Software!

Hetman Uneraser 4.1

Hetman Uneraser is a truly universal solution for recovering just about any type of deleted information. The tool will help you undelete deleted files, and recover information stored on accidentally formatted hard disks, USB drives and memory cards. Hetman Uneraser can reliably recover files removed from the Recycle Bin or deleted via the Shift + Del combination.

The pre-recovery preview is available even in the demo version of Hetman Uneraser, allowing you to see exactly what you’ll be getting after registering the product. Using Hetman Uneraser is simple and easy thanks to the intuitive Explorer-like user interface. In fact, you’ll probably find that recovering files with Hetman Uneraser is easier than using Windows Explorer to simply copy a bunch of files from one folder to another!

Quick Start

This video tutorial will help you learn all the essential features of Hetman Uneraser at a glance. Watch the video and see how easy the complex recovery process becomes when you start using the right tool! Note that all files correctly displayed in the preview can be fully restored – guaranteed!

Using Hetman Uneraser

Before you begin using Hetman Uneraser, it is essential to learn a few simple security precautions. First, when downloading Hetman Uneraser, do not save it to the disk you’re about to recover. Second, when installing Hetman Uneraser, use some other disk, and not the one that holds the files you’d like to undelete. That’s it! You can now go ahead downloading and installing the tool. Average user rating: 4.8 (2125 votes).

Step 1: Choosing the Disk

When launching Hetman Uneraser for the first time, you’ll see the list of logical (drive letters) and physical (actual hard disks, flash drives etc.) devices. Select the disk or device that contains files you’d like to recover, the tool will begin scanning the disk for deleted information automatically.

Quick Scan

Just click on a logical disk or physical device to begin the scanning process. The tool will automatically scan the entire volume or device, displaying the list of all existing and deleted files and folders discovered on the device. Deleted files and folders will be marked with a red “x”.

Virtual Disk Images

Virtual disk images are bit-precise snapshots of physical devices or partitions. Virtual images come handy when you want the safest recovery possible. While it’s always a good idea to work on a copy of actual data instead of the original, another major consideration making virtual disk images a great idea is that the tool creates such images by using a single long read command instead of scanning the disk with many random read operations. This helps a lot when you have a hard drive that unreliable or is physically failing.

You can capture an image of the entire physical device or a certain partition. To create a virtual disk image, select the disk in the folder tree and use the “Service – Save disk” menu command. You can specify the location of the resulting disk image and choose whether to compress its content. Advanced options include initial offset and length of the image. Make sure the destination device has enough space to store the newly created disk image, and click “Save” to begin.

To recover information from existing disk images, click “Service – Mount disk” in the main menu, then specify path to the DSK image. Hetman Uneraser will mount the image and add it as a new volume into the folder tree. You will then be able to scan or analyze that disk just like you were using a physical device.

Finding Partitions

You can locate all previously deleted volumes by scanning the physical device. The discovered partitions will be added to the list of available volumes.

In order to scan the device for deleted partitions, select the physical device and click the “File – Find partitions” command in the main menu. Advanced options include volumes’ file system and approximate location. However, it is recommended that you scan the entire device for all types of file systems in order to maximize the change of discovering all partitions.

By default, the tool will engage the quick scan mode. If your partitions are not discovered after the quick scan, you can run comprehensive analysis of the device. Note that this comprehensive mode is slow as it reads the entire surface of the hard drive.

Step 2: Selecting Files to Recover

A major convenience feature of Hetman Uneraser is the ability to display the content of deleted before actually recovering them. This allows quickly finding files that can be actually recovered, as the preview accurately represents the file’s health state.

“$Lost and Found” Folder

Sometimes it is simply not possible to determine the original name or location of a file. Such files are then placed into the “$ Lost and Found” folder. If you can’t see the files you’re looking for, make sure to check this folder before resorting to comprehensive analysis.

Comprehensive Analysis

In Quick Scan mode, the tool only checks the file system to locate deleted files. This method is blazing fast, but won’t return anything if there’s no record of a given file in the file system. If you can’t see the files you were about to recover, try running Comprehensive Analysis. In this mode, the tool scans the entire disk surface, engaging content-aware detection algorithms looking for files of known types by their characteristic header structures and persistent signatures (e.g. “FF D8” for JPEG files). To run a comprehensive analysis on your system, simply open the “$Content-Aware Analysis” folder in Hetman Uneraser. Please note that in this mode the entire disk surface will be read. Depending on the size and speed of your disk, the analysis may take some considerable time.

Pre-recovery Preview

The pre-recovery preview function supports a wide range of formats including digital images, archives, documents, spreadsheets, executable files, video and audio files. If the file looks good on the preview, then its recovery is pretty much guaranteed. Note that pre-recovery preview does not use any external software or libraries, so you can easily preview e.g. Word documents without having Microsoft Office installed.

Recovery Bin

When recovering multiple files that were deleted from a bunch of different folders, use the “Recovery list” feature. This panel is located at the bottom right hand of the main window. You can add files and entire folders into the recovery bin by simply dragging and dropping. When you’re finished adding files into the list, click the “Recovery” button on the main toolbar.

Step 3: Searching Files

Sometimes locating a certain deleted file may not be easy. Hetman Uneraser helps you find exactly what you’re about to recover by offering comprehensive multi-dimensional sorting, filtering and searching functionality.

You can easily hide or display existing (non-deleted) files by using the “View – Filter” command from the main menu. The search can be started via the “Edit – Search” command. You can search files by any combination of file name, size, create date, modification date and last access date. Default sorting mode arranges files by the name. You can use a different order by right-clicking the file area and selecting desired sort mode.

When you’re done choosing the files to recover, clock “Recover” to run the wizard that will help you save those files to a safe place. The wizard will make sure you’re using a new device to store information being recovered in order to avoid damaging or overwriting deleted data. Note that you can only save the files after purchasing a license. The free demo version is limited to pre-recovery preview. Note, however, that you will NOT need to restart the tool or scan the disk again after purchasing the license. Simply enter your product key in the registration form, and you’ll be able to proceed to the saving step immediately.

Step 4: Saving Data

Make sure you have a spare disk, flash drive, or external storage media to save information being recovered. If you attempt to save that information onto the same disk that contains deleted information, you may simply destroy the very information you were recovering. So if you’re undeleting files from disk “C:”, make sure you select disk “D:” to save their undeleted copies. This is essential for successful recovery operation.

Saving into a Folder

Saving the files being recovered into a folder on a disk is the easiest way. All you need is another disk, or a flash drive, or some other type of storage media.

Hetman Uneraser allows to preserve the original folder structure, keep NTFS file streams, and replace unknown characters in the files’ names with something legible by choosing the corresponding options.

Burning CD or DVD Disks

Hetman Uneraser can use CD or DVD media to record information being recovered. This is convenient if you have a lot of data to recover and don’t have a spare volume with enough free space.

You’ll be able to choose the CD/DVD drive and configure disc volume, burning speed and file system of the discs being recorded.

Note that Hetman Recovery supports multi-session burning mode. You’ll be able to keep the original file and folder structure if you select the corresponding option.

Creating ISO Images

If you’re recovering files for a customer, creating burnable ISO images is a popular choice. The options are similar to those available when burning the actual CD/DVD media, e.g. you’ll be able to specify the disc label and file system, and opt to keep or discard the original folder structure.

Using FTP to Upload Information to a Remote Server

You can specify a remote FTP server as a final destination for the files being recovered. Specify server name, port and address, enter login and password, and specify whether active or passive transfer mode will be used. Hetman Uneraser supports FTP proxies. Just as in other methods, you can opt to keep or discard the original folder structure of your data.

Comprehensive undelete, unformat partition and hard drive recovery tool! Recovers information from all types of storage media formatted with FAT and NTFS. Use this tool for recovering information following accidents of any type.

Supporting all types of healthy and damaged storage media, Hetman FAT Recovery can recover data from hard disks, SSD drives, USB flash drives and a wide range of memory cards. Use this tool for recovering information after all types of accidents.